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Troubleshooting crashes

Here are some tips to try and solve crashing problems when using Serato Software The first step is to ensure you're running the most recent version of your Serato Software.

If the software is crashing on you, it could be caused by multiple things and it is not necessarily the Serato software that is responsible. Finding out what is causing a crash can be a bit of work, and mostly involves "process-of-elimination" style troubleshooting.

Make sure you:

Close all other programs before running

Remove any other audio devices or sound-card interfaces from your computer (this includes USB, Firewire, Thunderbolt or Ethernet)

Have the most up to date drivers, firmware, and software version

Have no corrupt files in your database

Have no firewalls or Anti-virus software active that could be restricting Serato software from running

Have the most up to date operating system updates

Remove any conflicting USB devices or drivers

Check your computer meets the minimum specifications

Detecting and removing corrupt files

The most common cause of a crash is having a corrupt file in your music library. You will need to make sure you have all your files analyzed and remove any files marked as corrupt.

Click on the 'analyze files' button to analyze your whole library (This can take some time with a large library).

Click on your ALL crate

Click on the first empty box of your library's column header to group files by type.

Delete all files marked with the 'corrupt' icon by using CTRL + SHIFT + DELETE (This will send those files directly to the trash/recycle bin)

Note: Make sure you don't re-import these corrupt tracks back into your Serato software music library. It is wise to delete these files from your hard drive. If you want these tracks you can either re-download, re-rip or re-encode these tracks then import the new versions (make sure to check these for corruptions too!)

Renaming the database V2 file

Another possibility is your database file is corrupt. To test that, try renaming it as follows. To rebuild your Database V2 file, follow the instructions in this article: here.

If this works, it would be helpful to attach your corrupt database file to your help thread for Serato for analysis.

Crash Logs

A useful thing to do if you're getting crashes and can't find a solution is to send the Serato Support Team a crash log if possible. A crash log does not directly tell us what the problem is and sometimes we need to escalate your log to the development team to have a look at. If you send us a crash log, this doesn't mean we will have an answer for you but we might get some more information from the log that is helpful in troubleshooting.

NOTE: A crash is when the program shuts itself down, and NOT when the program freezes or when you have to force quit the application.

Crash logs can be found here:

Under Windows XP you need to have Dr Watson enabled to log crash dumps. Read the guide to do that here.

Attach any logs to your Help Request if you have one. Remember, a crash log is not a direct report of why you are experiencing problems, but we will try our best to decipher it and find out what could be causing reoccurring issues.